Bahrain GP : F1 Medical Dr Ian Roberts explains the Crucial minutes of Romain Grosjean rescue

Formula 1 medical doctor Ian Roberts explains the final crucial minutes during Romain Grosjean rescue operation from burning car. The Doctor says that a blast of extinguishant that beat back the flames allowed him to help Romain Grosjean out of his burning car in Bahrain.

Not sure if it’s mere coincidence, FIA and Formula 1 celebrating Volunteer weekend during Bahrain GP weekend as part of thanking those first responders, who are there to keep Formula 1 and racing safe.

After the Frenchman’s huge crash on the first lap of the race, it was those first responders, Dr Roberts , FIA medical car driver Alan van der Merwe and local marshals rushed to Grosjean’s aid . The Frenchman escaped with burns to his hands but will spend the night in hospital. The real hero’s of the day was widely praised for their quick reaction.

While Talking to Skysports F1 , Roberts told “There was a massive flame and we arrived to a very odd scene where you’ve got half a car pointing in the wrong direction and just across the barrier a mass of heat, Then looking to the right at that point, I could see Romain trying to get up.”

“We needed some way of getting to him, so we got the marshal there with the extinguisher, and the extinguisher was just enough to push the flame away as Romain got high enough, so I could reach over and pull him over the barrier.”

Roberts led Grosjean to the medical and gave him a quick check over.

“I think I told him to sit down. He was obviously very shaky, and his visor was completely opaque, and in fact melted. I managed to get his helmet off to check everything else was OK.

“It was going to be flames, smoke inhalation, airway issues, and that nothing went up to his helmet, and we had a look at the helmet as well.

“But looking at him clinically we were quite happy with him from a life-threatening injury point of view, so it was about making him comfortable from the injuries we could see.

“He’d got some pain in his foot and hands, so from that point we knew it was safe enough to move him around into the car for protection and get some gel on to his burns, and then into the ambulance and to the medical centre.”

Medical car driver Alan van der Merwe stressed the incident showed how practice paid off.

“A lot of it is down to preparation,” he said. “When you get to something like this, and we’ve not seen this combination before.

“I’ve not seen fire like this in my stint as the medical car driver, and a lot of it new and unknown territory, so we can only be as prepared as our own ideas. We do a lot of checklists and a lot of preparation, talking about scenarios, but this was crazy.

“Honestly, to get there and to see half of the car and the other half nowhere to be seen and just a huge ball of flames so you have literally seconds, thinking on your feet, so preparation only gets you so far. Then it is down to instincts and quick thinking.”

Current FIA President Jean Todt, Late FIA Race Director Charlie Whiting and Prof. Sid Watkins have done a lot to push F1 to the safer place we are in today. Kudos to whole rescue team and people behind developing and pushing for new technology to keep sports safe for everyone. After all it was HALO that came into Grosjean’s rescue in avoiding major injuries to head.